Amy Schumer Tells Funny Jokes, but She’s No Feminist Hero

Edward R. Murrow once famously said, “Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”

Applying this concept to the modern day, just because you were 2015’s “it girl” doesn’t mean you are a social trailblazer. From a pop culture standpoint, Amy Schumer no doubt won the year. Her summer blockbuster Train Wreck was a hit both with critics and at the box office. Her HBO stand-up special at the Apollo Theatre was also hilariously brilliant. She’s been so inescapable in recent months that the perfect term describing her is the same exact word used by Comedy Central to promote the latest season of her series Inside Amy Schumer: “overexposed.”

Indeed the idea of labeling Amy Schumer, whose cousin is Senator Chuck Schumer, as a feminist, “new feminist,” or even a “third-wave feminist” is about original as setting your RomCom in New York City. However, what within her body of work has truly been ground-breaking for individual rights?

What specific glass ceilings has Schumer actually smashed through?

There is no doubt that comedy used to be, and in many ways very much still is, an old boys club, but it’s Tina Fey who truly blazed a trail here, when she became the first female head writer of Saturday Night Live way back in 1999.

There is no doubt that Hollywood has a ridiculously unrealistic standard for feminine beauty, with expectations for female A-listers conforming to physical proportions that are almost unnatural at times.

However, it’s Melissa McCarthy who essentially became the first larger-framed woman to consistently land leading-lady gigs — long before Schumer was even on the map.

As one who’s very socially liberal, I have absolutely no problem with all of her sex jokes, in fact I find many of them quite hilarious. However, as a political liberal, I have major issues with the media labeling her body of work and explicit material as “progress” for women.

Being a “sex comic” is not the 2016 version of a suffragette.

I attended a recent meeting of the American Association of University Women and took a survey of member opinions on today’s most popular female comedian.

“She is certainly not a feminist,” said Lois, 71. “Definitely, not in the traditional sense, really not in any sense. I don’t see her as really advancing any kind of social causes.”

Margaret, 59, agrees.

“She tells a lot of funny jokes, but she hasn’t really achieved anything special that wasn’t already in place before her,” Margaret said. “I don’t see how or why history would remember her for anything.”

Perhaps the reason so many magazines and newspapers have tried to build Schumer into so much more than she truly is resides in the bread-and-butter of her material. Almost all of her work relates to sex or sexually related topics in some way (the title and logo of her show aren’t exactly subtle regarding sexual imagery) and it takes a very bold person to frankly discuss such intimate topics in public.

Credit Schumer for having the self-confidence and self-awareness to consistently play a self-deprecating, dumbed-down, promiscuous version of herself. That shows how truly healthy her self-esteem really is, and that’s where she’s a genuine role model — on the individual level, not the sociological.

If you care that deeply about how mainstream culture values your own individual sexual habits, then that’s not society’s fault; it’s your own. As long as you’re not harming anyone (exceptions being made here for the sadists who are paired with willing and able masochists), then what you do in your bedroom is your business, not Hollywood’s.

Obtaining a level of comfort in your own sexuality is a journey one goes on within themselves. It’s not a political action.

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Paul M. Banks is a regular contributor to RedEye, the Chicago Tribune's youth-oriented daily newspaper. He appears regularly on WGN's CLTV (usually wearing a sport coat with skinny jeans) and KOZN 1620 The Zone. Banks previously contributed to the NBC Chicago and Washington Times websites. He currently owns and manages The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Growing up with three older sisters and no brothers, he inevitably ended up a member of #TeamOverDressed